Articles selected from the June 2007 issue of Molecular & Cellular Proteomics (Vol. 6, No. 6):
Proteins role in coronary heart disease
Scientists provided the first large-scale identification of the proteins involved in coronary heart disease. The information will help to better understand the progression of the disease, improve diagnosis, and detect early pathological signs more efficiently.
Coronary heart disease, which is characterized by abnormal thickening and narrowing of the blood vessels, is the first leading cause of death in the United States. But what happens inside the cells of these blood vessels is not completely understood. One way to figure it out is by identifying the proteins present in blood vessels of heart disease patients, and then comparing them with those present in healthy blood vessels.
David K. Han and colleagues developed a technique called direct tissue proteomics that identified all the proteins expressed in the coronary arteries of heart disease patients. They found about 800 proteins, some of them not previously known to be involved in heart disease. The list of proteins, which is freely available to the scientific community, could help develop more effective therapies against coronary heart disease. The investigators also used another highly sensitive proteomics method to detect important cytokines directly from diseased coronary arteries, an approach that could uncover important biomarkers relevant to other diseases.
Article: Proteomics Analysis of Human Coronary Atherosclerotic Plaque, by Carolina Bagnato, Jaykumar T
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Contact: Pat Pages
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American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
26-Jun-2007